I was fuming yesterday, and I continue to fume today. However, I am turning that fume-itude into constructive revenge, if you will, by writing this post.

Yesterday I discovered that my local Los Angeles Progressive radio station, KTLK-- the only one that exists to serve the area, including "Liberal Hollywood"-- is dumping all Progressive programming and handing the air waves over to the far right. In other words, what was left (no pun) of the left will be gone: No more Stephanie Miller Show to wake up to and point and laugh with, no more Randi Rhodes to inform us and rant with, no more liberal voices on L.A. AM radio. At all. Anywhere on the dial.

Instead, we get Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and who knows who else spewing lies and slinging mud. And by "we" I don't mean me. Hellz to the NO.

Au contraire, I had a lovely chat with Steph's producer extraordinaire, Chris Lavoie, yesterday who filled my weary, outraged little noggin with options and information that I am now sharing with you, below.

Meanwhile, there was an article about all of this ins-hannity in my morning Los Angeles Times, which has now been inexplicably edited for the online version.

You can read what's left of the article to see what's going on in California's "liberal media" here, but one very important excerpt that was cut is the following:

Tom Taylor, an independent reporter who has covered the radio industry for two decades, noted that the creation of "The Patriot" [the new lineup for KTLK] comes as the United States enters a midterm election year, meaning there will be ample money spent on political advertising. "The calendar's important here," he said.

Got that? Timing is everything. So is money, apparently.

Just FYI, I've listened to KTLK since Day One, back when Air America was barely alive and kicking, and there was absolutely no promotion of that station whatsoever, anywhere. How could they attract listeners without advertising? Uh huh.

The then-station manager and I were in contact often; he relied on me in KTLK's early days "to be his ears" because I would email him when there were audio glitches, and there were many. We'd email back and forth about how the infant station was doing, but still, there were no ads letting Progressive listeners know that there was a radio outlet especially for them.

But as time passed, the general manager lost his job, Air America went away, Thom Hartmann was replaced, and gradually "Your Progressive Talk Station" morphed into something less-than. Steph and Randi are the only remaining nationally known hosts, and now their voices-- and ours-- have been stifled by the usual corporate conservatives. They already monopolize the news media, but that's not enough for these greedy, war-on-everything that's not old, male, and white bottom-feeders.

I went to the KPHX website, downloaded their free app, and will be streaming it on my iDevices through my nice, clear Bluetooth mini-speaker.

And to listen to a live feed of the Randi Rhodes Show, just go to RandiRhodes.com and click on Listen Live at the top of the page. Again, PLEASE donate to get Steph and the Mooks back on the Tee Vee machine here.

Don't forget how all of this came to be:
Hurray for Ronniehood (as in Reagan) getting rid of the Fairness Doctrine; and then Bubba (Clinton) deregulating media ownership, and along came the well-paid (under the bench?) Supreme Courtniks who told us to believe that corporations are persons.
Of course! How stupid of us; why didn't we know that? In jumped the Koch bros who've broken more environmental laws than China. They and their ill ilk became so influential by lobbying (as in bribing) lawmakers of both parties, but mainly GOP, to deregulate such areas as Wall Street, banks, mortgages, and the environment, to name a phew (sic).
This resulted in a great time for a wonderful recession, as people lost their homes, their jobs, and some lost their lives for not being able to get healthcare.

Something stinks here.

President Obama: As the clear and overwhelming leader of the voters of this nation, why have you not frozen the assets of these treasonous bodies, and nationalized them? Please stop trying to be nice to these who hate you, and even moreso cannot stand that a person born with a natural tan, unlike the faked tan of John Blamer (sic), is living in the WHITE House.
Please advise.

http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/ GottaLaff

Got it, thanks!

scrivenerNP

Actually, when I said "disappeared" I was referring to the real-time U.S. mil-intel-corporate telecom/net censorship regime that I exposed in the article that I linked in the post above! If you get a chance, give it a look -- it may shed new light on the dilemma. Thanks.

http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/ GottaLaff

So sadly typical.

RepublicanSwine

Sadly, they did the same in Portland with KPOJ. And it was replaced with, wait for it, Sports. Even though that relatively small market already had 2 dedicated sports channels. So you guessed it. As a progressive radio station they were pulling a .8 share. As a sports channel, they've been pulling a .1 share.

http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/ GottaLaff

I still see your response, scrivener. Not sure why you don't. Unless you were talking about one that went to pending for having a link in it. It often takes us awhile to catch those. If you read our guidelines it warns about comments with links automatically being held until we can approve or reject them.

We at TPC don't "censor" unless someone is name-calling, baiting, trolling, etc. Again, read our guidelines. That you imply censorship without having read them is, once again, offensive.

I see two comments by you that apologize for the word "whining" and that contain nearly identical content, so for that and your other supportive words, we thank you-- twice.

FYI, behind the scenes, many of us have tried our damnedest to "get together to help recover our audience." Not sure if you're unaware, naive, uninformed, or just optimistic, but the roadblocks are often insurmountable. You might try contacting my radio hosts, Angie Coiro and Nicole Sandler for details. They could fill you in on how it's one thing to say what you're saying, and quite another to achieve that goal.

I repeat: Many of us don't have the money we need for the outlets we want. We have no funding. We have no studios. We have very few options.

And nobody here "disappeared" your comments. Jumping to conclusions before fully educating yourself re: our guidelines and the behind the scenes funding efforts (ie, lack of funding) on the left is not helpful nor does it make your points sound convincing.

If I misunderstood you, then I apologize, but that's what I perceived from your comments.

scrivenerNP

My response was disappeared! I apologized for using the term "whining," and said it's no surprise that this happened b/c mainstream media is totally under control of ham-fisted authorities who know how to muscle those they consider to be "dissidents" -- like you and I. I gave this link to one of my recent articles as an example: viclivingston(dot)blogspot(dot)com/2013/06/us-cyber-commandlockheed-martin.html I had to deactivate the link before it would post. And then it was "disappeared." Proves my point. As for Alex Jones, he's a controlled opposition psyop mouthpiece, in my opinion, but he's got a sound economic funding model (maybe because he's a "protected contrarian"). As I originally said, I'm a fan of yours and I think if disenfranchised journos get together, we can help each other recover our audience. Now let's see how long THIS version stays up before the real-time net censors take it down again...

I was ON Green 960 with Angie Coiro. We hated what happened back then, and continues to happen now. It's criminal.

http://FreakoutNation.com/ Anomaly 100

Neener on you Memo! Ha!

http://leftcoastoracle.blogspot.com LeftCoastOracle

San Francisco lost liberal radio some time ago but this is a signal the Clear Channel is willing to subsidize right wing shock radio in hopes of picking off independent votes in the mid-term election.

I do miss the fairness in broadcasting law.

http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/ GottaLaff

FIVE? Crap. You beat me by two.

http://FreakoutNation.com/ Anomaly 100

Yeah, and I probably donated more than you. (5 cents)

http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/ GottaLaff

You're one up on me, I only donated once, dammit.

http://FreakoutNation.com/ Anomaly 100

"Stop whining" said the whiner. And just because of you I am going to donate again, for the second time in 10 minutes.

You're welcome!

http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/ GottaLaff

"Stop whining"? Really? Posting a news story with legitimate options, a post that was retweeted by John Dean and other notables who found it newsworthy and helpful, is "whining"? It's not informing and offering solutions? If that's whining, then I'm a proud whiner.

Thank you for your "creative" words of wisdom.

And how exactly does one stream in an unequipped 2001 car? What if someone is unable to "be creative"? Or can't afford to be?

By the way, we can't stream those shows live here.

And Alex Jones should be NOBODY's model for anything ever.

http://FreakoutNation.com/ Anomaly 100

No, EEE you Memo!

http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/ GottaLaff

EEE Memo!!

scrivenerNP

I use iTunes radio tuner every day to listen to OTA radio stations and even specialty shows like Alex Jones, as do many others. Stream over your own website and the disenfranchised progressive jocks can take advertising and keep the revenues. Stop whining and be creative! Look at Alex Jones as a model...

http://FreakoutNation.com/ Anomaly 100

Otay, I donated. Thanks Memo!

Jayson Tanner

Sorry to hear about this. I think AM programmers in most towns believe that liberals & progressives tend to listen to new media (internet & satellite) more than old media - and the older mad as hell white male listeners are about all that's left out there to listen to AM radio... I'm not sure if that's a true theory but it's a common thought with radio people. And if KTLK is part of a media group they probably need that rightwing money to finance their other stations. Sad but true. We still have a station here in Chapel Hill which used to be Air America's flagship here. They're down to just Stephanie Miller & Ed Schultz.

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